Hadn't Realized
by Konsui's Little Brother
Summary: Up until now, the day before the world ended, Scott hadn't realized a lot of things. Things that he should have recognized.


A/N: Alright, now I'm getting annoyed. This is the third time that I've had to re-write my A/N and the format for my story still isn't coming out right! It won't keep the breaks in paragraphs, which is just sepreating the different scenes, and the story doesn't have the same impact without them!

Original A/N: Okay, I have no idea where this came from. I'm not a big fan of Scott, or Jean but that's beside the point, and yet this story is completely written in his PoV. You should probably blame my sister for that. Not only is she my muse, though she refuses to accept that fact, but she also plays Scott in our RP's. Because of that, it's her fault if this story stinks.

* * *

It was odd really. Odd that it took Scott so long to figure out such a simple thing as this. Odd that it took him until now to realize what it really meant to be an X-Man. Odd that nothing but this brought him out of his self-loathing revery.

It was odd. Odd that none of the other Original X-Men noticed it until now either. Not even Jean, one of the strongest pyschics on the planet, didn't take any notice of it either. Everyone was too self-absorbed in their own life, their own problems, their own pasts.

And it was pathetic that it took him, the leader of the Original X-Men and the one who had been at the Institute the longest, until now to realize this. All of this.

It was the day before they went to fight Apocolipse, the last night in the mansion, and it was past the time that they should all be in bed asleep. Something that none of them, not even the teachers, could achieve and thus no one made any comments about it.

Instead everyone was sitting around the main living room of the mansion, all in their own little groups, and Scott was off to the side just watching everone. A part of him wanted to tell everyone to get to bed, because he was the leader and if any one died tomorrow it would be his fault, but he knew none of them would sleep. He also knew that it was better for everyone to spend time together, for what could be the last time, instead of laying in a dark room on their own.

So he just watched everyone do their own thing, sit in their own groups, and he thought. Not just about tomorrow, though that was something that he couldn't shake from his mind, but about the people that he would be going into battle with. The people who he had never paid any attention to in the past.

It wasn't just the Original X-Men that would be going to fight tomorrow, going to lay down their lives and die tomorrow. No. It would be everyone out there.

It would be Spyke; who had come in place of the Morlocks because, he had said, it was 'his war, not theirs'.

It would be Wanda; who was only fighting beside them so she could get at her father, Magneto, one of the Horsemen.

It would be all of the teachers; Beast and Logan being the only two left, they were all going out to fight.

It would be Angel; who had come because he had just wanted to help them, just wanted to repay a debt.

It would be Tabitha; there because she was an enigma and she wanted to be there.

And it would be the New Mutants; the ones who he had been thinking about earlier and the ones who were still on his mind.

He had never given them any thought, aside from the general 'protect' and 'discipline', and yet he was going out to fight a losing battle with them.

His eyes, covered permantly by ruby lenses, flicked across the room and landed by the fire-place. Jubilation 'Jubilee' Lee, Sam 'Cannonball' Guthrie, and Rahne 'Wolfsbane' Sinclaire, were all sitting in a circle, talking about something or another. Funny, Scott hadn't known that those three were close but they looked inseperable right now.

Rahne said something, Scott couldn't hear what from where he sat, and clenched a necklace that she was wearing tighter in one hand. He could tell that she was scared and upset and she had good reason to be, what with the world ending and all.

And then he realized, as he watched Jubilee scoot a little closer to Sam and Sam pull Rahne towards him, that he knew absolutely nothing about any of them. He had no idea whether their past had been happy or filled with misery. A fact that was only made more real as he watched Rahne pull the necklace up to her mouth, both hands now clasped around the pendant on it, and murmur to herself in a silent prayer.

He hadn't realised that she was religous and he hadn't realized that Sam and Jubilee were together, which from the way that Sam was holding her, they obviously were.

Scott tore his eyes away from the trio, because it hurt to look at them, and instead turned his gaze towards a semi-secluded corner of the room where Tabbitha and Amara were sitting. There was a pile of sand in between them, sand that looked suspiscously like it came from a flower-pot.

Amara and Tabbitha were forming the sand into a large, building like sculpture as they sat. Amara's hands were glowing slightly as they coasted over the sculpture, hardening the sand into a much clearer form as they went, and Tabby was just holding the sculpture together on her side. Holding it together until Amara could turn the sand into glass.

He didn't know that she could do that, turn something as simple as dirt into something as fragil as glass. It was amazing to watch. Even more so when he realized how badly her hands were shaking, yet she still managed to keep her powers going without messing up the fragile art-work that she was working on.

And it hurt to watch just how worried Tabby looked, just how scared Amara seemed. So he didn't.

His eyes swung around the room again, this time landing on the couch where Bobby and Warren -Angel- were sitting. The younger of the two boys, because not even Warren classified as a man, had his head resting on his hands, just staring into the fire on the oppisite side of the room.

Bobby looked, and it pained Scott to even think this, like he did when one of his team got hurt on a mission. He looked like he had the whole world resting on his shoulders, like everything that was happening was his fault, like if he made one tiny mistake everything would fall apart. And Warren was sitting next to him, nodding his head, and acting like the two were best buddies.

Scott didn't know that the two had ever even met before.

Over in the farthest corner of the room sat Ray -Berzerker- and Evan -Spyke-. The two were crouched on the floor with the same sort of expression on their faces, a look that seemed to scream 'I can never go back'.

Ray patted Evan on the shoulder with one hand, careful to avoid the spikes that stuck out there, and muttered something under his breath. Spyke snorted but didn't say anything, instead, he stretched his legs out in front of him.

There was a moment of stillness between the two and then Ray was lighting a cigarette, not bothering to offer one to Evan, and leaning against the wall. He shook his head at Evan, before nodding up towards the cieling, and then the two were suddenly in a quiet conversation.

The funny thing was, Scott didn't know that the two had anything in common. He hadn't known that Ray smoked, even though he should have, and he didn't know that Evan could be so serious about anything.

The only other member of the New Mutants was Jamie -Multiple-, and in all honesty, Scott expected him to be talking with Beast or playing a video game of some-sort. Instead he was talking, or more like pleading, with Logan.

The two were pretty close to him, close enough that he could hear Jamie's side of the story, and Scott wished that they weren't. He didn't want to hear Jamie, twelve-year-old Jamie, begging to be alowed to fight Apocolypse.

Jamie made the point that when, and Scott wondered when everyone had confirmed that they were going to die tomorrow, everyone else died than he would be left on his own. He asked what Logan expected him to do when they were all dead and he was left at the mansion on his own. He told Logan that he knew he probably wouldn't come back from the fight if he went and that he didn't care. He wanted to die fighting with the rest of his team, not in the mansion on his own.

Scott turned away just before Logan agreed, because he could tell that the older mutant was going to, and looked up at the cieling. He never knew that Jamie was so...So...Cynical. He didn't know that the younger kid could think things through like that and something in the back of his mind told him that it was his fault.

If he had been a better leader than he would have known these things.

If he had been a better leader than none of his team would die tomorrow.

If he had been a better leader than Jamie wouldn't be thinking about dieing.

If he had been a better leader than Bobby wouldn't look like everything was his fault.

If he had been a better leader than none of the New Recruits would have to fight together.

If he was as good of a leader as he wanted to be than no one would ever find out that he was so worried about tomorrow, that he was worried they would all die, and he told himself that he would atleast be that good.

He'd never let them know just how much he hadn't realized.


End file.
